A mobile communication device (e.g., wireless phone, cellular phone, wireless personal digital assistant, and the like) used in a mobile wireless telecommunication system, when turned on in a particular geographical area, searches for a “home” wireless telecommunication service provider or other wireless telecommunication service providers with which a subscriber to the wireless telecommunication service has a pre-arranged agreement. This situation occurs because there are generally multiple wireless telecommunication service providers in any given geographical area. Depending on the pre-arranged agreement, different service providers will charge different rates, with the “home” rate generally being the least expensive and the other rates being more expensive.
The rates charged by service providers other than the home service provider are generally referred to as roaming charges. Therefore, as a subscriber to a wireless telecommunication service moves from one geographic region of the country to another, the subscriber will be charged different rates depending on which service provider the mobile communication device locks into in that particular wireless market. To address this problem, mobile communication devices generally store a table in an internal memory circuit. The memory circuit may include storage devices such as random access memory (RAM), read only memory (ROM), and/or programmable read only memory (PROM). The table stored in the memory includes a list service providers including an optimal service provider (e.g., the home service provider that provides the least expensive connection charges) and a plurality of other service providers with which the subscriber may have pre-arranged wireless (e.g., cellular) roaming agreements. The plurality of other providers is generally arranged in the list in some form of priority. Therefore, as a subscriber moves from one geographic region of the country to another, the wireless device when turned on searches for the home service provider (e.g., the optimal provider) or another service provider with which the subscriber has a pre-arranged roaming agreement in order of preference. Wireless roaming agreements between each service provider enable wireless communication service providers to offer lower roaming rates to their subscribers (e.g., customers) and maintain profitability only if the mobile communication device is able to find and register with a proper (e.g., correct) mobile communication system when traveling or roaming outside the subscriber's wireless home-coverage area.
Wireless communication service providers created an intelligent roaming feature to address the problems created by the expansion of wireless communication service providers in a given geographic location, as well as throughout the country, and the increased functionality and capability of contemporary mobile communication devices for locating many different wireless communication service providers in all wireless markets. Intelligent roaming automatically ensures that a subscriber can access their preferred wireless communication service providers when traveling or roaming outside their wireless home-coverage area. Intelligent roaming works by entering a list of wireless communication service providers and their frequency bands, ranked by priority, into an Intelligent Roaming Database (hereinafter “IRDB”) stored in the memory of the mobile communication device.
To help direct the mobile communication device in locating the correct wireless communication service provider while roaming in a variety of wireless markets, an IRDB can be initially stored in the mobile communication device or can be downloaded to each individual communication device from a base station. During an intelligent roaming process, the wireless mobile communication device scans all available frequency bands to determine which service providers are available in the current geographic region. When a recognized service provider is located, the mobile communication device registers with, or “locks onto,” the particular service provider. Generally, the service provider will be the subscriber's home wireless communication service provider because generally it is given top priority. If the subscriber's home wireless communication service provider does not provide service in the area, the IRDB instructs the mobile communication device to search for a partner service provider in the current geographic region. If a partner is not available, the mobile communication device scans for a wireless communication service provider that is “favored,” or categorized in the IRDB, over one that is not categorized in the IRDB. Services that do not meet the wireless communication service provider's standards can be classified as “forbidden,” for example. With the exception of making 911 calls, the mobile communication device will generally not select a forbidden wireless communication service provider's network.
The intelligent roaming control function can potentially result in significant savings for the wireless communication service provider. It also makes it possible for the wireless communication service provider to offer additional services. Intelligent roaming also allows the wireless communication service provider to increase quality and reliability at a lower cost by rapidly moving roaming traffic between different communication providers based on various predetermined parameters such as the price and quality of the service provided by each communication provider, for example.
As roaming agreements change over time, the IRDB must be updated in every mobile communication device to match any new agreements. Updated IRDBs can be downloaded to each communication device over the airwaves at certain predetermined intervals, such as every month, for example. Large wireless communication service providers usually require multiple IRDBs because not all mobile communication devices share the same capabilities such as the capability of operating at multiple bands or the homed system may be an “A” or “B” band, or may be in a “PCS” frequency range, for example. To optimize revenues, IRDBs for specific geographic regions can be created to customize the selection of a wireless communication service provider for that region.
Selecting the correct IRDB to download for each mobile communication device can be overwhelming. Conventional technology utilizes mobile communication device type and mobile communication system type that the mobile communication device is homed from to determine the IRBD selection process. The information is downloaded from the mobile communication system (e.g., a base station) to the communication device via a Short Messaging Service Center (hereinafter “SMS message center”), which allows short text messages to be exchanged between wireless mobile communication devices and other networks over a wireless network. From the billing system of the wireless communication service provider, and possibly through auxiliary processing centers, the SMS message center is provided with a template number associated with a correct IRDB to be stored in the SMS message center for each mobile communication device that requires a new or updated IRDB. The process of selecting the correct IRDB does not always work correctly because of frequent changes in the customer's equipment (e.g., customer purchases new mobile communication device). Reference to customer equipment also can be located across several different databases, thus exacerbating the problem.